The semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) industry has experienced rapid growth. Technological advances in IC materials and design have produced generations of ICs where each generation has smaller and more complex circuits than the previous generation. In the course of IC evolution, functional density (i.e., the number of interconnected devices per chip area) has generally increased while geometry size (i.e., the smallest component (or line) that can be created using a fabrication process) has decreased. This scaling down process generally provides benefits by increasing production efficiency and lowering associated costs. Such scaling down has also increased the complexity of processing and manufacturing ICs and, for these advances to be realized, similar developments in IC processing and manufacturing are needed. For example, conventional photoresist or photosensitive layers comprise a base, which is not photosensitive. Thus, after an exposure process, exposed areas of a photoresist layer may exhibit less than desirable acid distribution contrast and base distribution contrast. This leads to lower pattern contrast, resulting in poor pattern profiles and/or poor resolution, particularly as pattern features continue to decrease in size.
Old methods for forming small trench critical dimensions (CDs) and small trench end-to-end spaces usually require a high cost exposure tool, such as EUV. Pattern shrinkage, which often trades off trench CDs for end-to-end CDs, also remains a problem.
Accordingly, what is needed is a method and photoresist material for manufacturing an integrated circuit device that addresses the above stated issues.